Educate yourself and spread awareness with the help of these sites:
Al Jazeera - This is a news site that gives constant updates and information on Palestine.
Decolonize Palestine - This is a website that informs you about the history of Palestine, debunk myths, and gives out a lot of resources to look into.
Visualizing Palestine - This site creates infographics that can help people visualize the statistics from data collected about Palestine. They are free to download and share around.
The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive - This site features a collection of many things from Palestine that archives documents, letters, and other items that show the lives and experiences of Palestinians.
Ways you can donate to/support families in Palestine:
Arab.org - Just do your daily clicks and you get to donate for free. Please take the time to donate to all of the causes.
Gaza Funds - Every time you refresh the site, it leads you to a different GoFundMe page for the people who need help.
Care for Gaza - This is an organization that sends aid out to Palestine, you can find more in their Twitter/Xaccount. They also have a PayPal.
eSims for Gaza - You can send an eSim to people in Palestine to help them connect and reach out.
Emergency Relief for Gaza - This is a campaign that gives food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian aid to families from donations.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) - They also give medical aid to the people in Palestine and you can also support by donating to them as well.
Make sure to look at the other tabs within the spreadsheets as they lead to more options/resources!
Help Gaza - This is a spreadsheet with a list of fundraisers for different families/causes that need support! Look through and donate when you can!
Operation Olive Branch - This is a spreadsheet with many links and ways to help in the project! There are campaigns, fundraisers, volunteer work for other parts of the causes and such! Make sure to check it out!
Some of these documents intersect and have similar resources and links, but I’m adding them just to make sure as they may also have some that aren’t listed in this post either.
Concept: in a setting where vampires exist and can only be harmed by symbols of faith (crucifixes, etc.), a James Randi-style skeptic/supernatural debunker witnesses his family murdered by vampires, and dedicated his life to hunting down what he believes are a cabal of ordinary serial killers with a blood fetish and some cheap plastic fangs. They die when he shoots them with an ordinary gun, granted holy status by the sheer force of his belief that they are actually just ordinary humans who will die when shot.
I’ve been trying to start Making Money for a while now, but I am currently reading it. I am in it now. I am invested.
And I would like to say that thing about the golems in Going Postal that didn’t quite click for me just has. Because of Gladys. The thing was, I related to them a lot, but couldn’t figure out why; I am not a massive living clay person with a furnace inside. But I have become a commodity as a means of completing work for money. The golems are all made to work and they don’t know how to do anything else. Even their days off are… empty. Their relief is literally not doing anything. They are all always working or doing nothing.
Even Gladys. In fact, especially Gladys. What made this really click for me is that being a woman is, in fact, Gladys’ job. It is her second job after being a postal worker.
I was born to, presumably, work. To be a person. To be male. I was born to do these things. But I like golems, I can never not do all of these things. When I take a break I am still expected to do many of the jobs I was born to do. I am always performing. I envy that ability to do and to be nothing.
Love the bit in Going Postal where a stuck up old lady asks Moist if the golems he employs are male or female and he goes “who cares?? There’s no difference, they just want to do their job” and she’s like “well I’ve found one cleaning the ladies bathroom! He could be doing… inappropriate stuff in there” And he asks the golem with him “uh, would a golem care if he was called Miss instead of Mr” and the golem is like “not one bit lol” and he’s like “do you think Gladys would work as a name?” And the lady is like “yeah sure, as long as she’s dressed properly” and he’s like “uh, well, okay never mind, great the matter’s been resolved” and everyone goes about their day
Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes wouldn’t get on at all, and they’d never admit why, but it’s because they’re too similar. They both have an internal morality more sturdy and unmovable than a mountain, they both know they contain the capacity for great evil, but keep themselves in line with self discipline the likes of which most people couldn’t dream of. They both know about the importance of choice, and of truth, and of autonomy. If either of them were able to look past their aversion to seeing their own reflection, and worked together, they’d be fucking unstoppable.
Something about two of the main Discworld series being focused on these intensely determined, stubbornly moral people just really means a lot to me. You’ve got Moist using his criminal mind to help people, and the wizards doing whatever wizards do, and Death showing kindness to people in their most vulnerable moments. And you’ve got these two, making the world a better place whether it likes it or not. It will get better, or else, they say. Or else you’ll have me to deal with.
sam vimes is actually the character ever. when we meet him he’s absolutely fucking WASTED in a gutter bc he’s grieving a subordinate and a friend. he gets his shit together bc he’s an adrenaline junkie. he told the patriarch of ankh morpork to shut up TWICE in like, five minutes (and vetinari let him). he annoyes rich people constantly and consistently. he has arrested two armies (INCLUDING his own city’s). he survived being chased by werewolves. he’s “vetinari’s terrier”. he recognizes ankh morpork streets by the feel of different COBBLES under his too thin boots. he’s sober but keeps a half empty bottle in his drawer to keep himself in check. assassins have tried and FAILED to assassinate him countless times. he can make armor look rumpled. he HATES kings and gods and journalists and kings and stupid rich ppl. when he’s angry he punches the wall outside of vetinari’s office and vetinari LETS HIM. he’s malewife. he’s so so great.
god I am always thinking about how moist von lipwig fundamentally does not think himself as a real person. he’s not a real person, and so none of his actions have consequences. until he is forced to be a real person and deal with the consequences of his actions (adorabelle) like. it’s even in the name. lipwig is a fake mustache. he’s not real he’s just a character. he’s always playing a character. what do you mean his actions have real consequences. he’s not real. until he is.
The older I get, and the more on fire the world seems to be the more I feel comforted and SEEN by Sir Terry Pratchett and Discworld.
Not because all the books are inherently comfortable so much as because they feel like someone taking you by the hand and saying; “I know. I’m just as angry about this bullshit. But we can hold hands. But the sun still rises. But hope is still important. Hope wears steel toed boots and smiles with pink and bloody teeth and will make you laugh and will make you cry. It’s not okay. But we’re in the shit together, and some day it’s gonna be less shit.”
Discworld is so delightful because you get lines like “When banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve” except it’s spoken by a 7 foot tall sentient clay statue named Pump 19 and directed to a man whose name is Moist von Lipwig
Feeling a lot of feelings about how Hadestown doesn’t present the story as “Orpheus turned around and everything fell apart and there was nothing anyone could do to fix it” and instead presents a story that says “he turned around, he doubted, he failed, but if we keep telling his story maybe one day Orpheus won’t” and it’s not just about Orpheus as a single character, it’s a bout every Orpheus, everyone who runs up against a system they can’t change and fails and everyone who sees that failure and gets back up and says “maybe I can change it now” and tries again. That Orpheus failed isn’t the takeaway of the story. The takeaway is that one day he might succeed.
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